The Sweetest September

John frowned. “I’m not saying you are, but I can’t accept you got pregnant that night.”

“Look, I’m not thrilled, okay? I’m only here because I thought you should know.”

“Are you sure it’s mine?”

She almost slapped him. Would have been melodramatic and very Scarlett O’Hara-like, fitting considering she sat in the middle of a field in the Deep South feeling rather beat down. “Thanks for the unspoken accusation that I’m a whore. And a stupid one at that.”

John slammed the brakes, his arm catching hers before she could slide forward into the dashboard. “I’m not calling you anything. A woman I barely know shows up saying she’s pregnant, I think I’m entitled to ask a few questions.”

Shelby yanked her arm away and shifted even farther from him. “I came to tell you. That’s it. I don’t expect anything from you. I can take care of the baby on my own.”

John sank against the cracked bench seat, looking as if someone had taken the starch out of him. “Just give me a sec, okay?”

Shelby didn’t say anything more. She got it. She’d needed a lot of moments herself over the past few weeks.

For several minutes they sat; the only sounds were the tractor humming, the occasional shouts of the men working the fields and their mingled breaths, which was vastly different from the last time they’d been together. Very sober. Maybe too sober for the reality that had just crashed into both of their worlds.

“So what are your plans?” he asked. “Are you going to, uh, move forward with the pregnancy?” He sounded choked, as if the words stuck in his throat.

“Yeah. At first I thought about taking care of it—”

“Oh, God,” he breathed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I can’t imagine. I can’t—”

“I know, but my first reaction was to erase the mistake we made then I could just move forward, but...” She trailed off, wondering how she could put into words what she’d experienced when she’d seen the heartbeat, heard the rhythm established by a life growing inside her. It was almost sacred.

John’s eyes met hers, his gaze still convoluted, still shocked. “But what?”

“I heard the heartbeat,” she whispered, swallowing the sudden emotion. Something warm crept up her spine. It wasn’t an aw emotion. More like something that might eat her and swallow her whole. Not danger, but something life altering, something that made her palms sweaty.

John said nothing, merely turned his attention to the field full of glossy green leaves of sugarcane stirring in the slight wind. Captured stark against the horizon, he stood in sharp relief. John was a man shaken to his core.

“I’m sorry,” she said, after several more seconds of nothing from him. The knot in her stomach grew tighter. She didn’t know what to do, how to make it better for him. Or her.

“Me, too,” he offered, his eyes fastened on the horizon.

“If you’ll take me to the house now, I’ll let you get back to work,” she said.

John scratched his head beneath the Ragin’ Cajun ball cap. “Not yet. Let me run this part out and then we’ll go back to the house.”

Shelby didn’t want to spend any more time with him. She wanted to go to her hotel room in Baton Rouge, take a bath and curl up beneath the coverlet with the TV drowning out everything in her life. Escape sounded perfect, but obviously John wasn’t going to let her slink away. The knot inside her tightened and twisted. “Fine.”

After handing off a part to someone named Henry and bumping back along the original path, John headed to the farmhouse. It appeared around the bend, plain and lonely against the cerulean background. A turn of her head showed her John’s stoic profile, jaw squared as he contained his emotions.

Okay. She’d done it. She’d told him about the child growing in her belly. Their child. Mission accomplished. Now all she had to do was go back home, tell her parents, move out of the guesthouse, get a permanent job, take a birthing class, register for preschool, start a college fund....

Oh, dear God.

Parenting wasn’t for wussies...and she’d be alone.

Sweat broke out on her upper lip and her body started to tremble as the enormity of her situation, combined with the residual anxiety from telling John, crashed over her. Her teeth chattered as the knot inside her unwound, releasing some strange hormonal thing that smothered her.

John stopped the cart and climbed out.

But she couldn’t move.

Silly as it was, all the emotion she’d balled inside over the past four weeks rolled over her, rendering her, well, overwhelmed.

“Shelby?”

Oddly enough, during the middle of what was possibly a panic attack she realized she liked the way he said her name. He had a drawled Southern accent quite different from Darby’s soft Acadian dialect. Maybe a slight lilt.

Shelby waved her hands as if she could make the panic enveloping her go away. “I’m just a little—” Gulping deep breaths, she couldn’t finish.

“Jesus,” John said, taking huge steps around the mule to reach her side.

“No, don’t touch me,” Shelby said, brushing away the hand reaching for her, shrinking from him.

“It’s okay. Breathe.”

Shelby wanted to say something biting like what in the hell did he think she was doing, but she couldn’t seem to care enough to be a smart-ass.

“Come into the house,” he said, taking her by the forearm, his touch as gentle as his words. “We’ll have some tea or something and take a few minutes to process all this.”

“I just wanna leave,” she said, teeth still chattering, her breathing ragged. She figured if she didn’t get out of there, away from him, she might hyperventilate. “I told you. That’s it. I’m done.”

He stiffened again, but didn’t release her arm. “I understand, but you need to gather yourself before you drive. Come inside. It will be okay.”

“It won’t be okay,” she said, inhaling deeply, trying to find her calm, trying to find herself in the hysteria edging in. How dare he even imply such a thing? It will be okay. What a fat lie. She might be resolved to her fate, but having the baby of a stranger was not even remotely okay. “This is a screwup of enormous magnitude.”

“You’re right, but it will be okay.”

“Stop freaking saying that.”

He clamped his mouth shut and studied her for a moment. The same perusal he’d given her earlier. Scientific. “You don’t need to drive. You’re upset.”

“Duh. You think?” Shelby drawled, the anger, the lack of control pissing her off. She’d had a plan. Tell him. Leave. But somehow her body...or her mind...or something...hadn’t gotten the damn memo to play it cool.

He didn’t respond. Just stared at her. And tugged on her arm in an insistent manner.

“Fine,” she said finally, struggling to her feet. “I’ll gather myself and have a cup of tea. We can even pretend we’re normal people.”

Again, nothing from him. He released her arm as she stood.

Shelby took a deep breath, relieved her task was nearly over. Now someone other than her doctor knew about the life knitting together within her womb. Of course, she’d shared that information with a man she didn’t know beyond the investigative report sitting in her sock drawer...and the fact he sang off-key to old George Strait songs when he danced.

Wordlessly, side by side, they climbed the steps. When they reached the top step, where Shelby had perched a mere half hour ago, John stopped.

Shelby turned around, still fighting the edging panic.